


A Model Citizen

by skellerbvvt



Category: BioShock, BioShock Infinite, Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brainwashing, Bucky as Both Booker And Elizabeth, Multi, Natasha as Herself, Sam also as himself, Steve Not As Himself, Tony as the Lutece Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 06:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1541600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skellerbvvt/pseuds/skellerbvvt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He was saved. Is saved. Will be saved." Somebody says.</p><p>"He was lost. Is lost. Will be lost." Somebody else says.</p><p>No more coins. No more sides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Model Citizen

i.

He stands in the studio and moves where The Artist puts him. He doesn’t need to do anything for this one, he was told. Just be still. Just be silent. He won’t remember this later, when he comes back and they scrub him clean for the next Artist. And that next Artist will have specifications about who needs to be. Sometimes Authors come in and they need him to be somebody real, so they’ll put somebody real in him. It is a town that of big personalities and it places a high price on somebody who can be made new.

But this one just needs a body, and he can be a body. 

"Hey. Hey, hey look at me." The Artist says, gentle. 

He frowns, reflexively. Looks up. The Artist stares at him and he can recognize desperation. Desperation is when you open your eyes and your mouth and stare. He can reformulate his body to mirror it. There's a radio churning something quiet in the background. Just enough of a tune to keep interest, but not enough that he needs to pay attention to follow. He can mostly hear the static behind the sound.

"You’re okay. You’re okay, look at me." The Artist says and cups his face. The Artist's got one thumb in a velvet glove. It catches on his skin. A small bubble of thought moves through the syrupy-slow foundations of his brain. It should be leather.

He doesn’t wonder if there was a miscommunication and there’s somebody that’s supposed to be walking in this skin. He is a body. He is malleable. He mirrors the Artist's face.

The Artist says more things, keeps touching him. His face. His arm. His hand. He stares where his head has been moved, and he feels something unsettle in his stomach because The Artist is not doing anything except talking. He does not remember this but people do not talk to him. He is talked at and around. He is directed and composed like clay. He is a page to be written on. Nobody tells a story to the book.

“Where do you think we are right now?” The Artist asks, finally.

He stares around the bright, beautiful studio with the sunlight streaming in from all angles. It is a sunny city he lives in. Plenty of good light and good air and whenever his Patron comes there are buskers on street corners singing snatches of songs he can't ever quite grasp. Children playing with brightly painted faces, holding hands with their parents. It's a good city. It is a happy city. It is a city of light. He is the model of Artists and he is the device by which the Curator and his Patron create beautiful things.

He doesn’t remember this but when their time slot is over his hands are shaking. The Artist is gone and his Patron has his arm. He is being lead. The city is bright. The city is beautiful. 

“That Artist...” He says when they are back in the museum and there are all the happy families looking at the artwork. Families. Happy families. It's a bright city, It's a happy city. “I knew him.” He says. Maybe it's a famous Artist. He doesn't remember but he has been the canvas of Dr. Steinman. _With Adam there's no reason not to be beautiful-He's too tall, he's to big he is too symmetrical, but we can fix that. Yes, we can fix that._

He is meant to be still. He is meant to be silent. They say that he has to be empty because they can't make him better. He doesn't remember this, but he failed all the injections. He doesn't remember his genes screaming under his skin, in his skin, of his skin. No matter what they do to him he turns around the same man. That is where they got their idea. That is why is a model and not an Artist.

"You’ve worked with him before." His patron says.

He sits and digests this in the slow, clicking way his brain moves now (or always? His is a muse. He isn’t made to be smart. And they made him, obviously. That’s why he is in the Museum with the other muses. They made him. And they can unmake him.) They sit him on his podium and he is meant to be still. He is meant to be silent. There's a couple dancing in the sunlight, swaying gentle back and forth before rousing into an intense jitterbug and then she...dips...him and they're...and it's gone again. Another syrupy air bubble popping on the surface of his thoughts.

"I knew him." He persists because something has shaken loose and he doesn’t know what and that’s…that’s not right. Something isn’t right and he can’t be just a Body if something has gone wrong and- He's still. He's quiet Don't interrupt the Art.

"We’ll get you fixed." his patron says. Puts hand on his shoulder. Picks him up from his podium and they walk and they're going to clean him up. Restore him to how he should be. He leans back. They've got the needles. They can't do anything to his body, but his mind. He doesn't remember this, but the untainted human body will regenerate just about any cell structure except for the complex nerves in the spinal column. The body will start trying to heal and then prevent itself because once made, never recreated. The spine cannot be forged. He doesn't remember this, but it takes his mind far longer to heal than anything else. And the people here? They know how to make up somebody's mind.

It’s going to hurt it’s going to hurt it’s going to hurt-

ii.

He stands in the studio and The Artist sits him down. It is in a comfortable position. The Artist wants him to look relaxed, so he relaxes. The room is warm. The light doesn’t shine in his eyes. He will not remember this, but mostly he gets put into strenuous positions and told to hold them hold them hold them because if you just wanted an artist model there were plenty out there. And he does more than just pose. But he doesn’t know that. You couldn’t infect anyone else’s work.

He does remember this but Cohen has ordered him a lot. He doesn't remember this, but he feels a silk glove crawl up his spine. He doesn't remember this and he does not shiver.

"Look at me." The Artist says, and he looks up.

The Artist has a sketchbook and nice, clean light and something about the way the Artist sits makes him relax more.

"Could you smile for me?" The Artists asks, quietly. He does, and it’s a soft smile to go with the soft chair and the way his legs are splayed open and he is a body. He is a body and it doesn’t matter what the story is as long as it gets told. But he thinks, dimly, darkly, back in the corner where hopefully nobody hears him scream, that this is good.

There were more people dancing. There was different music on the radio. There was an angel walking through the halls and her red hair glowed and she had looked at him and he thought, slow, so slow she'd been long gone by the time it occurred to him, _aren't you like me?_ But she had been beautiful and she had been gone. The city is full of light. The city is beautiful. People dance in the hallways. Fathers carry their daughters. A woman danced with her son. A woman danced with her son a woman-

“You've gotta remember me in there somewhere.” The Artist says, quiet. “The Starks, they say it's all in there somewhere. Or will all be there somewhere. Look, this place is driving me nuts, so you've gotta. You've gotta help me out here. I don't...remember it all.” The Artist stops sketching, looking down at what he's done.

_Knife_

No, charcoal. The studio is bright. He is comfortable. This is a bright and happy city.

“Is he or is he not.” Says someone.

“Was he or was he not.” Says somebody else.

“You two have anything helpful to say today?” The Artists asks, getting up and he knocks over paint on the honey-rich floors. Why does he has paint? He draws in charcoal? “Because otherwise I could without the peanut gallery.”

“You came here because he was here, but now he is here and you don't know if you are.” Somebody says.

“Constants and variables.” Says somebody else. “Is he, was he, will he be.”

“Were you, are you, can you?” Says somebody.

The Artist stops drawing and stands in the paint, head down and thinking. 

The song plays on. It's the same song, though he doesn't remember. He is still. He is silent. He doesn't remember but sometimes he has to pick up little lost girls and bring them to safety. They are small and fragile and he brings them to the nice, smiling lady who promises she'll make sure they have good homes. And they smile at him, and she smiles at him and he is _good_ he is a _good man._

When the time is up and after he has been laid down and told to relax until the world is a soft, calm place, a stubborn part of him looks at his patron and thinks  _no_. But he gets up. He does not look at the Artist as he leaves. There is not paint on the floor. He watches the sun stream in from all the windows a moment. He doesn't remember this but Dr. Suchong and his son had invited him over to play. He had been a student with them, helping the child learn his lessons. There had been a puppy. He does not remember this. He does not remember this.

When he gets back they ask him questions and he stares at them.

"Who was that Artist?"

"He used charcoal." He answers, because that was all he knows. Pencils, he thinks from nowhere. Pencils would be…easier to get a hold of. They came with erasers on the end now and that was… He has charcoal marks on his arms and hands. Must be from where The Artist poses him. They will wash off.

"Who are you?"

"A muse." He says, because that’s all he knows.

“Sit down.” they say and there's something important over there. There's something that matters and he can't...he can't quite...

"Would you kindly take a seat?" His patron asks.

They still erase him because (and he will not remember this) someone else needs him to be somebody. A wet artwork that takes over all of Fontaine's. Has a widespread effect on the population. 

“If Ryan ever found out-” Say somebody.

“Ryan doesn't ever need to.” Says somebody else. “Ryan can focus on tracking down his Parasite and we, in the meantime, can have ourselves sitting mighty pretty before this is all done.”

It’s going to hurt it’s going to to hurt it’s going to-

iii.  
He is warm in the studio, and warm in his chest. The Artist draws him, but doesn’t ask him to move. He does not look around the rest of the studio. His purpose is to inspire. He is still. He is silent. He doesn't remember this but yesterday they had him dance. They had him dance until he was just one big blister. Oh how he danced.

"Hey, what do you think about this?" The Artist asks and gets up and sits next to him. The Artist has a lot of life-studies. More, he thinks, than they could have done today.

He looks at the Artist, who is warm and…shorter than he…he should be. But his words stay down where he can’t reach them. He is still. He is silent. It is a bright city. It is a beautiful city.

“Find the words and you'll find your man.” Says somebody.

“But will the man find his own words?” Says somebody else.

“Used to be in a city like this we would have been very popular, don't you think? It grows on a person.” Says somebody.

“We were infected long before this city was with it's own kind of parasite.” Says somebody else.

“A city of parasites built off parasites, fighting parasites.” Says somebody.

 

“What words.” Says the Artist and he's shouting in the dark. No. No dark. Where would it be dark? Where could dark be as the sun shine from all the windows. It is a bright city. There are not places rot can hide.

“Should we tell him?” Says somebody

“I think it would be kinder not to.” Says somebody else.

But they're the only two people here. The studio is big. The studio is bright. He is a doll in the best dollhouse in the world. He just needs the Artist to pick him up and play. Make him have meaning. He can help.

The Artist flips pages. “Remember when it used to be so hot we’d sleep out on the fire escape just to get some air?”

He won't remember this but The Artist talks like this a lot.

 

He is still. He is silent. He is meant to inspire, but not influence. When someone uses him as their paintbrush (and he does not remember this) it is not him who gets to decide who is the paint and who is the audience. He just acts as he is told, removed, cleaned, and rinsed out.

The Artist stops all of a sudden, jaw firm. “I’m not going to leave you like this.”

He is still. He is silent. There are no screams building up where they can’t ever get out. There is paint. There is so much paint. Who will clean it up. When he looks around The Artist is gone and all the dancers are tired and sitting to the side. What did he. What did he.

"It isn't working." His patron says to somebody else. “We need to find another way to get this guy taken care of.”

"Not an option." that somebody says. "You know who he is."

"I know." His patron says. "The problem is that I think it does too."

"Just keep erasing him."

Erasers left marks too. You could fill a whole page with charcoal and erase what you wanted the world to see. You could create the illusion of movement by drawing, erasing, and re-drawing.

It was going to hurt it was going to hurt it was going to-

iv.  
The sunlight hits his shoulder with the weight of a sleeping cat and from a dusty, beat up corner of his head he thinks _this is familiar._

It is a studio. He must have been in many studios. It’s his job to go to studio and be still, like this. He is on a couch and he is comfortable and the sun weighs across his right shoulder heavy and warm and he looks at The Artist and The Artist, too, pings something. They are both covered in sooty charcoal marks. 

"I’ve been here before." He says, surprised at the sound of his own voice entering the air, but too well trained to move. He has to be still. He also has to be silent and he can almost feel the pressure of a muzzle over his mouth now that he’s broken that rule.

The charcoal clatters onto the ground and he doesn’t move. If he doesn’t move then maybe the pain won’t be so bad. He doesn’t know what will hurt him, but- He keeps his mouth closed and goes as still as he knows how and tries to find the crisp static buries somewhere in the core of himself.

"Hey, hey." The Artist says, footsteps careful on the honey-rich wooden floors. The Artist’s feet are bare from what he can see. "Don’t panic, this happens sometimes."

The feet turn to a thigh as the Artist sits down. “What do you remember this time?”

He wants to point out there’s no way The Artist finished his drawing yet and if the The Artist doesn’t finish is work then what sort of muse is he? The pain will come the pain will come for him and if he is very still and very quiet. The pain is going to come anyways. It’s going to come no matter what. He doesn’t remember how he remembers, but it’s going to hurt. It always hurts after he comes back from here. He’s safe here, but not…

He’s wrapped in a blanket and arms and there’s some awful animal noise that’s going to distract the Artist from his job. He should remove the distraction. He should be still. He should be silent. He is allowed to inspire but not to influence.

The awful animal noise keeps going, no matter how still he stays and his muscles shake from how hard he’s trying to keep still, still and quiet and perfect and he has learned. He has. He swears he has. He doesn’t make trouble. He makes their art. He makes their art to their exact specifications no matter what they want. He sits in the museum and when they need to archive him he goes. When they need to clean him up he takes the rubber between his teeth. He doesn’t deserve whatever is happening here.

He is so thankful when his patron comes and The Artist watches. He wants to stay here, but it isn’t safe. It’s warm and it’s comfortable and he cannot be good. He cannot be what he was made to be, here.

"We need to archive it." His patron says. "Look at it. Soon we won’t be able to use it for anything."

"You know who he is." Somebody else says. “What else are we going to use? Nothing touches him. You can throw him in a room of Splicers and not one comes out of it alive. Where do you think we're gonna find something else like that.”

"How isn't he _dead_ yet then?” Says his patron.

“Don't know.” Says somebody else. She has red hair. She stands with her hips cocked, looking at them both. “But if you want to throw yourself at him, be my guest. I'll be sure they put your body somewhere nice a public.”

He sits. He takes the rubber between his teeth.

It’s going to hurt it’s going to-

v.  
He is a paintbrush and he is painting the whole town red. The mask is tight over his face, keeping his jaw shut and his eyes focused where they need to be. His lines go where they need to go, and then someone looks upon the creation of his artists and draws a harsh, thick line in the sand. He stops. confused, at this other paintbrush who is ruining the canvas.

_Attack._

He doesn’t remember this, but sometimes they need a dancer, and his body can do that. But only if the steps need to stay measured, and only if he leads. He can be the picture frame to someone else’s art.

_Attack._

He doesn’t remember this but early on his makers discovered that in order to make a perfect machine, one needed to create a world inside the machine that it wanted to function in. They turned little girls into killers by turning the entire world into a playland, dead bodies into angels. They made good men into monsters by telling them they were on the side of God and…America and…but that. He doesn’t know that. That isn't here. No Kings. No Gods. Only Good Men. It's 1957. New Years is around the corner. They'll want him for the party.

He sees himself as a paintbrush. He is making art. It is not his art, because someone else tells him where to leave the strokes. He is. He is.

The mask is ripped off and he takes in air. The world is getting dark. The sun is going down.

"Would you kindly stop." The other…the other says and he stops. He is still. He is good. He is good. He is good.

"Steve." The other says and it resonates down deep in his stomach and he’s shaking again the studio flicks in. Flicks out. Bodies. There are…there are bodies. There are…

“Who is Steve?” He says, because you can't name something. Names have power. Names get remembered. He's just a model. A model citizen. 

"Steve _would you kindly_ come with me?" The other says, with a desperation that he doesn’t and does remember. When his patron says it… “I know they've got your running on more ADAM than blood, but you've gotta come with me, Steve.”

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts…

"We need to hurry." She says and he knows her and he doesn’t know her and there's the red haired somebody. She is running and she is different. Is she a model. “Bucky, we don't have time for this.”

"The tear will close." Says somebody on the other side. “Sam and Clint can't hold them off forever.”

“If we go through not everything with come back.” Says somebody.

“Well we can't get what we haven't lost yet.” Says somebody else.

"Steve, would you kindly come here.” The other says and the world is blurring all around the edges. The canvas is burning. He needs to paint the town red. He needs to. He needs to fill in all the edges. There's going to be a big party and he's gotta. He's gotta.

"Who is Steve?" He asks, voice cracked. The other's arm is made of marble. He is a sculpture. This is okay. Artwork is okay. Steve(?). Steve can. He can. There are dancers but they have knives. They are coming for them. They are going to rip the canvas to pieces.

“We need to hurry or they'll Code Yellow him.” Says the red haired somebody.

They pull him through and the world shakes around him.

"Is he going to-" The other asks.

"His nose is bleeding." Says somebody says somebody says somebody

it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts- 

 

1.

Bucky smokes a cigarette on the balcony, staring out over the Paris landscape. His suspenders are down by his hips, shirt off and hair mussed. Nobody’s asked about the arm. It’s a whole new kind of world out there, with cities burning in the sky. They’ve made a business of making limbs for people. Tony and Toni made a machine that could open up reality, not that they remember. Not very hard for them to make new arms and legs for folks who need them.

Make wings for a guy who cause God's floating city to come a crashing down around it's own ears.

Steve is drawing quietly in his study, smiling to himself. He’s got plenty to draw these days. Plenty of artists friends and author friends to talk to. It’s a quiet sort of life. Steve helps with the designs for the prosthetics, since, as long as they function, it’s not like they need to look real. It’s nearly a fashion statement, though as far as Bucky can tell, nobody’s chopping off their foot to visit them. Tony and Toni aren't much happy with living in an era without the kind of equipment they're used to, but the worlds advancing little by little. Whole different sort of landscape they're making.

 

"Hey, Buck." Steve says. "Come take a look at this for me."

 

He stamps out the cigarette and goes in. “This that secret project you’ve been working on?”

 

Steve smiles and holds up his sketchbook. “I figured it out. It’ll be a comic book, like they’re doing back in the States. It’s about this underwater city.” Steve holds up a nearly perfect sketch of Rapture, or, Bucky guesses, the sort of Rapture that Steve had seen. A Rapture that was more Sistine Chapel than House of Commerce. “And it’s the biggest museum in the world, but all the statues come to life.”

Bucky leans on the table and looks through the pages. “What’s that?”

"Oh, that’s the curator. He wants to turn ‘em all back to wax figures. He’s losing profits. And sometimes he gets ‘em and they forget who they were, but then the others will wake them up and they’re plotting a revolution."

"Who’s the hero?"

Steve shrugs. “Everyone’s got their own bit in it, I guess. I don’t know. It probably won’t sell.”

 

Bucky ruffles Steve’s hair. “Wouldn’t worry about that. Business is good so you can go ahead and make whatever you want.”

 

Steve nods and sometimes he misses the States, but Buck had had Tony and Toni find them a world where World War II hadn’t shaken out quite the same way. No Hydra worming its way through the world, no Tesseract falling from fuck knew where. No Super Solider project. Steve had died in some factory trying to do his best by the people who made it out to the lines without the Project to bolster him up. Bucky had died too, in some rotting foxhole. Hadn't even gotten his body back to be buried. His name is on some wall Steve never got to see. He remembers dying like that, sometimes.

Tony and Toni show Pepper around the town. They're making it a whole new Paris. The kind of cultural revolution that the world think it's seen before, but not with these kinds of doors and windows.

United States was still trumped all up on it's brand of patriotism and nonsense. Maybe Andrew Ryan was out there, fleeing from Russia and planning his utopia. Natasha would probably see to that. She'd had enough of big men with big dreams dragging everyone else into their personal saga. So there were plenty of folks in the market for new limbs. Especially since the violent, unexplained take-over and subsequent literal fall of Columbia (they’d needed Columbia. How else to explain Steve to Steve without Vigors? Couldn’t tell a little guy that’d he’d become big from a super secret project that had never happened in the universe he thought he lived in. It was underhanded, but the lot of them were underhanded folk. He didn’t much know what Steve would have done in his place. Better, probably.)

Sam will probably fly in one of these days and ask Bucky to rip him open to a new world and Bucky can see all the doors and all the windows, but most of the time all he sees is Steve. Most of the time it's Steve saving him. Some of the time it's both of them dying. 

But right now he's got Steve in his shirt sleeves and waistcoat working on a comic about the stuff he thinks he made up and Bucky ain't ever gonna tell him different. This world doesn't work out? He'll find another. He'll keep going through until he finds the one where they get to be happy. He left his arm in some other hell hole to get here. 

 

"You’ll be my patron, huh Buck?" Steve asked, smiling and Bucky wants to catch him before he falls, but there he goes. Falling anyways. 

(You'd think Sam would be out there doing one thing, but he's trying to fix how the world takes care of it's Vets. Trying to shove the talking cure down the throats of a world that don't want to listen. He comes back around, flies in through the window.

“Man, it's a messed up world out there.” He'll say.

“Want me to find us a different one?' Bucky'll ask, and Steve will think they're joking. Will hug onto Sam and sometimes go to bed together, because Sam ain't got the keys to Steve's head. This place isn't going to hold them long. The world moves too slow for Tony and Toni. World is too backwards for Nat and Sam. But right now it's good for Steve, so that's where they are. They'll find themselves back to the one they're from eventually. Probably. Maybe.)

The grin slips off the side of Steve's face, and they can all be as careful as they want around him, but Steve is never careful with himself. So he’s off in his head again, locked up tight, because his brain remembers things that it shouldn't. Doesn't matter what kind of life he thinks he leaves, when he learns a lesson they can't make him shake it.

Bucky slips a blanket over his shoulders, gets him up and moves him onto the couch. The sun beams in off window of the cafe across the street and Steve goes very quiet and very still and Bucky still doesn’t know what to do about that. Constants and variables.

He wastes the salt on a Devil’s Kiss to light his next cigarette and sits next to Steve’s feet, staring out the window into the sunset.

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be this weird Original Alternate Universe thing, and then it was going to be a Dollhouse AU and then suddenly it was BioShock and I can't find it in me to regret it. 
> 
> Over here at: laserskellernoises.tumblr.com


End file.
